Sercos and Powerlink

Sercos is an open, international standard (IEC 61784, IEC 61158, IEC 61800-7) and is characterised by high speed with maximum precision. Synchronisation with an accuracy below one microsecond ensures deterministic and synchronous communication throughout the Sercos network. Sercos allows hot-plugging without impairing real time and synchronisation; the redundancy in communication ensures greater machine and plant availability. The seamless backward compatibility secures long-term investments.

Extensive diagnostics e.g. via LEDs as well as the option of defining device behaviour in the event of an error

Ethernet POWERLINK provides maximum performance with cycle times down to 100 µs and a system synchronisation in less than 100 ns, and it integrates Ethernet, CANopen and hard real-time capability. The technology includes prominent features such as redundancy, hot-plugging, direct cross communication, multiplexing, poll response chaining and more. POWERLINK was unveiled in 2003 as an international standard and is based on the open standards IEEE 802.3 (Standard Ethernet) and IEC 61784-2 (real-time capable Ethernet-based fieldbuses).